c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) At a banquet, I fell into conversation with the woman to my left and found myself explaining “cloud computing.” She hadn’t heard about using the Internet to collaborate on sharing information. So I drew a diagram and explained how it works.

What was so important? Staying current on technology, of course. More than that, I wanted to share my passion for collaboration.

In our prevailing “cult of the expert,” some people are deemed to have special knowledge or skills, and we accept what they offer. In time, we begin to doubt our own knowledge and skills. Whether we are managing investments, tightening our abs or decorating a room, we hire experts to think for us, lest we try it ourselves and fail.

This opens the door to “tyranny of the expert,” in which vendors and officials are happy to do our thinking for us. It makes sales and governance easier for them, if not exactly beneficial for us.

The answer isn’t to denounce experts, nor is it to drift into passive acceptance of our own ineptitude.

Better, I think, is the balance found in collaboration: we work together _ you have some expertise, I have some expertise, in the end we must each think for ourselves. The only lasting motivation is self-motivation, not an expert’s demands.

No less urgent is the need to get beyond the “we-they” divide. I see it profoundly in the church, but I know it exists in offices, education and elsewhere. In the church version, clergy and laity glare at each other across a centuries-old divide that has become toxic.

Clergy wish laity would accept their expertise; laity wish clergy would stop ignoring the insights and convictions that come, not from seminary, but from a life of faith.

Clergy bristle when laity use money and paycheck to compel compliance; laity wish clergy weren’t so casual about spending donated funds.

Clergy mistake their day-to-day tasks for a right to make all decisions; laity mistake their expertise in the marketplace for knowledge of how a faith community operates.

Clergy mistake deference for respect; laity mistake control for respect. Clergy retreat behind the costumes and privileges that ordination confers; laity insist on sharing those distinctions.

Such divisions are tearing the Christian community apart. They render us suspicious and unwilling to learn, fighting for shards of control when what God wants and the world mainfestly needs is the vision and servanthood that can only come from oneness.

Using Google Docs to share documents won’t undo centuries of clergy-laity warfare. But it can be an important first step.

As I explained to my dinner partner, I can post a spreadsheet with financial information and share it with relevant members. We see the same information. We can each analyze it. No longer is it “my” data which they must beg to see. It is “our” data.

Or I can post a draft document and invite review and comment. We can collaborate on reaching common ground. No longer do I trot out a full-blown plan for leaders to accept or reject in toto.

Our need for collaboration extends far beyond file-sharing, of course. But we can start there, in sharing information, and move on to sharing ideas and dreams, and then share decision-making authority, and, who knows, maybe one day share respect, accountability and, dare I say it, mercy.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

KRE/CM END EHRICH

600 words

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